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 Back to: Archive · 2003
'Think Tank' reviewed

From the nzoom.com website. Review by Cameron Officer.

The location may be Blur Town, but Damon Albarn's definitely the Mayor. The band's seventh proper album, Think Tank, sees the doe-eyed Blur front man taking full charge of the operation.


Albarn's iron-fisted approach now seems inevitable following his successful side-project Gorillaz, lukewarm reviews for last outing 13 - which suffered from too liberal an amount of "experimentation" (or, as some would term it, "musical laziness") and the nefarious persecution of the post-Britpop journalistic backlash - and, most importantly, the departure of resident bespectacled drunk; guitarist Graham Coxon.


Without Coxon, the group has no "yin" to counter Albarn's "yang", which means an unchecked ego is allowed free reign, while the chirpily passive Alex James (bass) and Dave Rowntree (drums) go with the flow yet again. Rowntree in particular has always - despite his competent skills behind the kit - had the air of someone who has, quite by accident, found himself in a rather famous band.


James - the grinning, lankily framed cod-philosopher - seems happy to continue his mute role in matters, as long as he has time to hang out, red wine in hand, with his debauched mates at London's Groucho Club and indulge his celebrity.


For a Blur fan from way back in the pre-'New Lad' days of love beads, tatty public school jackets and Doc Martens, it was truly distressing news to hear the demise of Graham Coxon.


While Albarn was the monkey, Coxon was the organ grinder - the true bandleader of the outfit. With his shambling, drunken, nerdish manner, he could never outshine the media savvy, handsome vocalist. But as a guitar player working within the bounds of radio-friendly pop rock, he was revolutionary, bending the guitar sound this way and that with frenetic, studied abandon.


Just listen to the wavy riffs of "She's So High", the pulsating stabs of sound from early Blur anthem "There's No Other Way" or any number of hazy, slashing, punky tracks ("Jubilee", "Popscene", "Chemical World", "Beetlebum") and his energy and inventiveness will underpin what the listener hears every time.


In a way, Coxon's departure hardly seems surprising. By the end of the '90s, the infamously difficult guitarist (watch him bristle in nearly every scene of their revealing, pre-UK chart dominance road movie Starshaped) had gravitated from the cheery post-baggy pop singalongs Blur became famous for, to the rougher edged American indie sound. Where Albarn was feting Mod icon Phil Daniels and buying greyhounds, Coxon was sitting at the feet of the likes of Pavement's Stephen Malkmus and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and learning to skate.


Coxon's continued exploration of the ragged 'college radio' guitar sound led to sprawling, energetically noisy, often discordantly un-listenable solo outings (The Sky Is Too High, The Golden D). The closest he came to usurping Albarn's more electronic vision of what Blur should become was on their self-titled 1997 album.


In fact this album was probably Blur, perhaps not at their best, but at their most balanced. Unmistakable Coxon-influenced tracks such as "Beetlebum", "Chinese Bombs" and "Song 2" rub shoulders with more epic, theatrical Albarn songs like "Essex Dogs", "Strange News From Another Star" and "Country Sad Ballad Man". It's a damn good equation, but one that couldn't last, as next long player 13 (second single "Coffee & TV", which gave Coxon his first true starring role, aside) would prove.


Against this background of polar-opposites, Coxon's departure is possibly made all the more self-explanatory by the arrival of one Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) to produce new album Think Tank. Even to someone looking in from the outside, recording with the Brighton-based boss of repetitively bouncy big beat anthems in Morocco (yes, Morocco) doesn't sound like it'd be the pixie-ish guitarist's cuppa at all. Thus, one too many acrimonious in-studio argument later, Coxon was on his way home - his former band mates, outwardly at least, barely seeming to give a rat's posterior.


Which brings us to the new album itself. To cut what has already been a long journey through Blur Town short, Think Tank consists of good bits, indifferent bits and bad bits. Unfortunately - and believe me, I really wanted to like this album - the good bits are severely in the minority. Occasional moments of joy shine through ("Ambulance" and the appropriately-titled "Good Song"), but this is in no way the Blur that existed even as recently as the aforementioned self-titled disc. The good bits are generally nothing more than cartoon-catchy, filter-fed fun. Remind you of anything?


Think Tank is a half-hatched sophomore Gorillaz album in disguise. For the most part, it seems synthetic and directionless (mercifully not as directionless as 13), but no where near as tight as The Great Escape or Blur). Sure, for many, Blur will always be about fast guitars and "Oompa oompa" brass interludes and it's easy to forget what they've done in the last five years, but Think Tank still comes as a bit of a shock for Blur fans who had come to grips with their electronic rebirth.


With Damon Albarn in total control at the helm, the layers of chirpy, starry-eyed, fun-filled, Just William-esque organic matter have slowly been stripped away to reveal the gleaming, efficient android beneath. And even though one can only take so much of faux-cockney accents and "Sunday Sunday", this is still a rather sad thing.